Mickey Spillane - [Mike Hammer 13] by Black Alley Page A

anyway?”
    I got the flashlight out, popped open the hood and inspected around the motor. “See, clean,” I said. We got in, I inserted the key and turned the engine on. There was no explosion and we both let our breaths out at the same time.
    “Damn it, Mike, you were expecting something!” Velda charged.
    This time my laugh was real. And relieved.
     
    The traffic flow on the Jersey Turnpike was loose and fast, so we got back to the city early enough for me to drop Velda off at her apartment and let me change shirts at mine. I didn’t want her where I had to go and before I put on my jacket I went back on what I had told Pat.
    I was going to see Don Lorenzo Ponti and all the odds were going to be on his side. But in these games of going face-to-face, I didn’t want to start looking like a pathetic slob hoping for a handout. Ponti was getting old, but the game stayed the same. I got out my old shoulder holster, slipped into it, put a clip of fresh ammo in the .45 and tucked it in the leather. It rode in a bad spot and hurt like mad, but after a few adjustments it felt better even if it sat where a quick draw wasn’t likely.
    All I hoped was that the boneheads Ponti kept around him had good memories and better imaginations.
    The local club was straight out of an old television movie. No class had been deliberately set in 1920’s brick and concrete, with building blocks of translucent glass to let in light on the main floor while keeping anybody from seeing in. The nondescript stores flanking the club were owned by Ponti, but kept unoccupied to protect the club itself. The only thing different was that no graffiti artists had touched a spray can of paint to the concrete.
    I got out of the cab a half block away and let them see me walk up to the club. There were two hoods outside the door who came out of the same TV show as the building and for a few seconds it looked like they were going to move right in on me, then one hood whispered something, the other seemed puzzled, then his face went blank.
    I walked too fast for them to try to flank me, one on either side, and grinned at their consternation at suddenly being vulnerable if any shooting started. To make sure they stayed that way I ran my fingers under the brim of my pork pie and knew they both had a good look at the butt end of the gun on my side.
    You don’t try to be nice to guys like this. I said, “Go tell your boss I want to talk to him.”
    “He ain’t here,” the fat one said.
    “Want me to shoot the lock off?” I didn’t make it sound like a question.
    Thinking wasn’t something either one of these two was good at. They sure knew who I was but couldn’t get the picture at all. The fat one tried to snarl and said to his partner, “Why don’t you go get Lenny, Teddy.”
    “If that’s Leonard Patterson, tell him I still have a present he didn’t pick up.”
    The guy called Teddy said, “You got a big mouth, mister.”
    “I got a big name too, Teddy boy. It’s Mike Hammer and you remember it. Now shake your tail and do what your buddy told you to do.” And the look I got was what I wanted. That Teddy character was going to be another snake to look out for. He sure didn’t buy being put down in front of a punk like the fat boy.
    Leonard Patterson didn’t come out alone. Howie Drago was right beside him and a big nickel-plated revolver dangled from his right hand. The game was still going strong because the other players still didn’t know the rules. Hell, they didn’t even know what game it was. What was on their faces wasn’t puzzlement. They’d look like that if they were halfway across the Atlantic Ocean in a canoe and a storm was brewing.
    You don’t let them talk first either. “You going to take me to see the don or do I go up alone?”
    Howie reacted first. “He’s carrying, Patti.”
    “And I got a license for it, kiddo. You got one of those?”
    “You’re not coming in here wearing a rod, Hammer.”
    I didn’t get to